The Space Between Heartbeats
by Gabri Jade
Summary: Sometimes happily ever after isn't. AU Legends vignette, timeframe: New Republic, post-Union, pre-NJO


Reposting an older fic I recently rediscovered and had never posted here.

Fic: The Space Between Heartbeats, 1/1, G  
Title: The Space Between Heartbeats  
Author: Gabri_Jade  
Rating: G  
Category: AU, vignette, romance, angst  
Timeframe: NR; post-Union, pre-NJO  
Warnings: none  
Summary: Sometimes happily ever after isn't.

Notes: Thanks to carrole for suggesting the story's locale, and to lady_padme for her always insightful beta work.

It's all so clear, I could never forget; loving you is the one thing I'll never regret. - Sara, by Bob Dylan

* * *

The day was drawing to a close, the setting sun casting long gold rays across the faintly reddish water. The irony wasn't lost on Luke Skywalker as he sat on the shallow dunes along the shore of Berchest's Leefari Sea, his knees pulled up to his chest and his arms wrapped around his legs.

Waiting.

There had been a time, not so long ago, when such waiting would have been tinged with a delightful anticipation. He missed those times now, with an ache that went to his core. He dug his toes slightly deeper into the still-warm sand, concentrating on keeping the ache from growing to an intensity capable of swallowing him whole.

A soft sound from behind distracted him, and he turned his senses outward again in time to recognize the familiar presence just as his wife stepped to his side, sinking to the sand beside him.

"Hi," she said. "Sorry I'm late."

Luke turned his head. She was looking straight ahead of her, toward the setting sun that was nearly below the horizon. A long ray of light skimmed across the sea's surface and settled upon her, gilding her pale skin and making her red hair shine vibrantly. Her beauty took his breath away; the wariness evident in her sense and guarded stance nearly closed his throat with pain.

"It's all right," he said, turning his own gaze forward again. The last edge of the sun's disk slipped out of sight, leaving them in the faint dimness of twilight. This stretch of beach was deserted save for themselves; most visitors preferred to remain in the nearby crystalline city of Calius Saj Leeloo. Luke had been there himself and could vouch for its splendor, but tonight was going to be hard enough as it was. Neither of them needed the added pressures of the city's crowds.

"How long has it been this time?" Mara asked quietly.

"Seven months," Luke answered just as quietly.

Mara pulled her own knees up to her chest and rubbed her face wearily with one hand. "I'm trying, Luke. I am."

Luke looked down at the stretch of land between them and the sea. The moon was rising. The white sand sparkled and glittered in its reflected light; beyond it, the sea was a vast, dark mass. The waves slapped loudly at the sandy rocks at the shoreline, spraying foamy droplets high into the salt-laden air. Berchest's notoriously strong tides continued their eternal dance, heedless of the emotional turmoil meters away. Just as Tatooine's sandstorms had continued, unabated by his family's death. The last time he'd visited his old homestead, it was nearly unrecognizable, its courtyard almost buried in the harsh sands.

Nature always overcame the intrusions of sentients that way; all the struggles and ambition and love in the galaxy couldn't stop the winds or oceans, or keep the suns from rising and setting. No matter how hard anyone tried, their lives and their accomplishments and their anguish barely registered on the galaxy's sensors, forgotten in the space between heartbeats.

He hated that.

"I know," he said. "I'm trying, too."

Mara sighed, the sound hardly audible over the tide. "Look, I have to rejoin the _Dawn Beat_ tomorrow afternoon, but I can get away for a couple of weeks next month. I know it's not enough, but—"

Luke interrupted her. "I have new trainees arriving at the academy the first week of next month, and I'm slated for diplomatic missions for the rest of it."

"Oh," Mara said. Even through their diminished bond, her disappointment was easily discernible, but so was her lack of surprise.

Luke looked at the sky, which had darkened from dusky rose to deep violet without his noticing. The stars were slowly beginning to appear, their faint light having little effect against the surrounding darkness. Mara stirred beside him, idly picking up a piece of kelp and running it between her fingers. The resulting squeaks sounded harsh and loud in the silence; she winced and tossed it away.

"I used to wonder," Luke said softly, "how Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru stood it. Every day was the same, I thought. The same farm, the same work, the same home. Every day coming home to the same person. They were so content with that, and I couldn't understand it. All I wanted was something new—new experiences, new sights, new people."

He gazed toward the ocean, the individual waves now visible only by their whitecaps, the spray glittering occasionally in the moonlight. Mara sat silently beside him, her head bowed.

"Now here I am, how many years later?" He dragged a hand through the sand, gazing listlessly at the shallow trenches his fingers left. They would be filled in by the tide tomorrow, and no one would ever know that he'd been there, or left any mark at all. "And the only thing I want is the sameness they had. I want a place of our own. I want to fall asleep beside you at night and wake up beside you in the morning. I want to see you every day, to know that you'll be there when I come home, or that I'll be there when you come home."

"Some day—" Mara began, her voice sounding choked. He interrupted her again.

"It's been three years, Mara," he said. "Three years, and in all that time, we've never spent more consecutive time together than we did on our honeymoon. Cumulatively, we've had what, maybe four months together? And it's not showing any signs of letting up."

Mara buried her face briefly against her knees, then glanced up at the darkened sea before them, still not meeting his eyes. "If Pellaeon hadn't died so soon after the peace treaty had been signed, Karrde might not have needed to put this much effort into his intelligence gathering business." She sniffed and pushed her hair behind an ear, straightening defiantly. "Without us, would the treaty stand? You know how much each government trusts the other, Leia notwithstanding. There have been so many conflicts already in our lifetime. The galaxy can't handle more."

"I'm not blaming you," Luke said. "It's the same on my end." He looked over at her just as a stray breeze caught her hair. It whipped briefly behind her, gleaming faintly red in the moonlight, and a wave of longing swept over him, nearly smothering in its intensity. He resolutely faced forward again. "If I'd realized just how much of my life would be given to rebuilding the Jedi, I never would have begun my training in the first place, let alone started teaching others."

"Yes, you would have." Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Mara turn toward him for the first time since she'd arrived. "You wouldn't have been able to live with yourself otherwise. Giving is what you do."

"And yet," he murmured, "I've failed where that giving is the most important: in my own marriage."

"I love you," Mara whispered, more than a hint of desperation in her voice.

"I love you, too. I always will." He picked up a handful of smooth sand and watched it run through his fingers. "Mara—"

"Don't say it," she hissed, suddenly fierce. "Don't you dare."

"It's not working, Mara. You know it as well as I do."

Mara snatched a small stone from the sand and hurled it into the sea with all her strength; Luke heard its splash even over the waves. She stood in one swift, smooth motion and strode several steps away, then turned abruptly and paced a step back, her near frantic defiance like that of a caged animal. "So that's it, then? Things don't work out as perfectly as we'd hoped, and you want to throw our marriage away?"

Luke looked up at her, her silhouette soft-edged in the night. His beautiful Mara, so fierce and strong, yet capable of such tenderness. He loved even her anger, so vibrant and determined and alive. He'd been blessed beyond imagining when she came into his life.

He held a hand out to her. She lifted her chin and crossed her arms stubbornly, but he could feel her pain echoing his own, and he didn't move. After a moment, she slowly unfolded her arms and reached her own hand out to his. Her fingertips barely brushed his own, but it was enough, and he drew her back down. Their eyes met for the first time as she sank down, and Luke ached for the misery he saw behind that intense green.

"I would never throw our marriage away," he whispered. "But I would end it if that was the best thing for both of us."

"It's not," Mara said, her eyes glistening suspiciously. "I'd rather have some of your time than none of it."

Luke shook his head. "A marriage like we've had isn't healthy, Mara. Maybe some people could make it work, but we can't. We're all or nothing, you and I. We always have been." He lifted a hand to trace the line of her cheek, then ran his fingers through her gossamer hair. "These half measures are killing us, piece by tiny piece. I can't keep ripping my heart out every time we part, and I can't keep inflicting that pain on you, either."

Mara closed her eyes and breathed. He could feel her fighting for control, and he cupped her cheek, wiping away the tear that slipped past her lashes. She turned her face into his hand, lifting her own to hold his in place, then lifted her eyes to meet his again. "Why did you come after me on Nirauan?" she whispered. "I wouldn't have fallen in love with Faughn. Better that we never started down this road at all."

"No," he said softly. "Never regret what we had, Mara. I don't."

"Not even now," she said, her voice quiet and inscrutable.

"Not even now," Luke confirmed. "The best part of my life has been our time together."

A corner of Mara's mouth lifted ever so slightly. "Mine, too." She sighed and rubbed her face again. "All four months of it. Even if we did screw it up."

"I wish I could start over and do things differently," Luke said, lacing his fingers through hers. "I wish I'd turned down all those missions at the beginning. I wish I'd handed over more of the academy's management earlier. I wish—I don't even know, Mara. Maybe the timing was wrong. Maybe it was never meant to be at all." He sighed. "Or maybe we did just screw it up."

Mara held his gaze for a moment, then crept closer and wrapped her arms around him, pressing her face to his shoulder. Luke put his own arms around her and held her close. "I'm so sorry," he murmured.

She shook her head against him, her arms tightening around him. "Don't talk any more," she said. "Please. Just hold me."

And he did, closing his eyes against the night.


End file.
